Coordinating Loop and Band

Welcome to Fortify The Mat with Misty Lynne. Once again, we are using both the TheraBand and the resistance loop today. If you'd like, realize that this is a great workout with either prop or none at all. So just make the choice that works best for your body. We'll be using them off and on throughout the workout, so just make sure they're close by.

And one more note, I think it's a lot easier if you wrap your band in circles so that you can slip your hands in and out and have an easier grip. So I recommend it, you certainly don't have to, but it'll just make the workout a little bit more comfortable as you go through. Let's get started, shall we? Place your band, just off to the side, we're gonna start off with a little bit of shoulder warm up today. So I'm coming on to my belly here and I'm finding a diamond position, both of my hands and of my forearms, I'm rotating my forearms forward.

I mean my armpits forward. And please feel free to start on your chest and nose, if you're more comfortable, but we're just gonna start with waking up the shoulder with alternating arm lifts here. And as I'm lifting, I'm thinking of the back of my arm activating, back of my shoulder engaging, and my arm just floating up. I'm not lifting from my hands. Oh no, no, no.

Instead I'm working from my middle back and then I'll come down, hold it here. And just thinking once again of the rotation of the arm pits as I lift, widening my back, and then as I'm coming down, letting my rib cage funnel together. Inhaling as I lift and then exhaling as I go back down. Once again, this is warming up. So think about warming up.

It's not aggression. We're being nice and gentle. The aggression comes later. And back down. How about one more for good measure.

Lifting up, holding it here. And we'll just nod the chin to the chest and lengthen up. Very, very comfortably gently. Remember, the nod of the head starts between the ears at the top of the spine, not at the bottom of the neck. So as you're nodding here, be mindful of where this work is initiating from.

Can we do one more and come back up and lower down. Pushing back and bringing your feet to the other side of the mat, rolling back down. And for this next warm of it's just a few bridges, you know, me and my bridges. But we're gonna have the arms back here in sun bather position, tanning your pits. Keep the pits rotated forward.

The feet are flat to the mat and find the connection of all 10 toes into the mat. Exhaling as you roll up, trying not to activate the arms in your roll, feel the doming of the arches of the feet. Rolling back down, use a full breath in each direction. Blow to lift, driving this from the core and not from the wherever, rolling back down. Let's do three more just like this because it feels good.

And as you're rolling down, really think of elongating the spine, creating additional space between each vertebra. Two more here. Once again, no pressure in the arms, no pressure in the shoulders and definitely no pressure in the neck as we're rolling through our bridge. One more, nice domed arches, scoop, roll, and articulate up. Lift those cheeks, lift the cheeks.

And then rolling back down to the mat. Good, now, just roll up to sit up here and we're gonna grab our band, and I'm fairly particular with the way I'd like for you to activate this or bring it into the work. So the band is gonna cross around the front of the feet first, then it's gonna wrap around the feet. This keeps it from snapping off and hitting you in the face, which is very, very important. Then what I'd really like for you to do, make sure the mat the band is on the back third of the foot, rather than at the forefoot.

And that's gonna come in handy in a moment. Once you get in here, try to make sure that your bands are even, as even as possible that is. Give it a little tug, make sure it's not gonna slip. And then before we go anywhere, if you're using the loop variation, go ahead and slip your hands in. If not, give it a good pinch between your thumbs and your fingers.

Now rotate your inner ankles forward. So not here, but here. That activation of my feet is really important, and I'm just gonna slowly descend to the mat. My belly is deep. And my elbows will come to the mat here.

Actually, let's go ahead straight. Take a big breath in first, nod the chin and the chest, exhale and curl uplifting your elbows. Look at your feet, they should be flat like you're standing on them and then roll back down and extend. Now I don't mind if you curl up a little bit higher but I wonder are you able to curl up a little bit higher without tilting your pubic bone towards your nose? And rolling back down.

The position of the ban here allows us to really focus on the pressing of the inner ankle bones forward. It's that idea of are my feet doing what I should be doing when I'm standing on them? Up and lowering back down. And let's do one more. Curl and lift, hold it right here.

Now from here, give me five biceps curls, four. And now even in this position, I'm thinking of the rotation of my armpits forward and one, hold it up and lower back down, taking your time, arms go down by your side. Same idea, this time as we curl up, we're going into an iron cross. Exhale scoop curl and pull wide, and back. Now here's where you really wanna think, are my armpits rotating forward toward the wall that I'm standing on or are they rotating down to the mat?

That's gonna be really important as we go through this workout, so pay attention. Do you know where your pits are? Two, and back down. And last one, exhale, scoop and curl up. Hold, standing on your feet, stay hollow.

Arms come forward. Bands go slack and open. Four, pull, three, two, and one. Hold, take a big breath in, exhale, rolling back down. If your arms wards awake before, they should be now.

Let's take a big breath in. Node the chin to the chest, exhale and scoop, curl up. Find your biceps. Now the elbows are gonna push up. Standing into your feet and four, find your middle back.

Don't let it go as much as it wants to escape. Be the boss of your mid back, and one more, lower all the way back down. Nice job guys. Now we're gonna go into the roll up. Keep your arms by your sides.

Rotate your armpits forward. Let's point the feet for a moment here. Give them a break, big breath in. Flex, nod the chin to the chest, exhale. As we're curling up, we're pressing the arms back, palms face the ceiling.

Open the arms through the T-position. Roll all the way back down, find the floor. Few more like this, Nod, curl, drag the arms back as you reach behind. This time lift the arms a little bit higher as you roll back. So we're building into that butterfly action with the arms as we're curling and rolling up.

Push the arms back, butterfly up around, pull away from your feet as you roll down. Two more. Nod, curl, try not to use your elbows to get up even though they're in the perfect place for that. Reach past your toes on this one. Sorry, I needed a break, I guess, 'cause I forgot to bring my arms back with me.

Let's do one more. Make it count. Scoop, curl, drag. You're still standing on the inside the feet, butterfly the arms up as you roll back, find that T-position and roll all the way down. Sliding forward a little bit.

Now for the rollover with the band, you may choose to not use the band. That's okay. My arms are up. My arms are gonna help me here. I'm gonna take a big breath in and exhale, scoop, rolling up and over, separate the feet, flex.

Stand into your bands. You're pushing out with your outer hips, not your feet. As you come down, tailbone hits the mat. Let's do it again. Scoop, curl up, over.

Separate, flex. Strong outer rear, strong inner thighs. Stand through your inner ankle bones. And again, scoop, curl, rolling stretching. Find the floor if you choose, separate, flex, stretch.

And don't forget to breathe, it's fundamental. Exhale, scoop, curl. Separate, flex, rolling, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch. How about one more. Scoop, curl, up and over.

Hold this position here for a moment. Just bend one knee toward the forehead and switch. And two and switch. Three more, keep reaching through your fists. Now's not the time to let your arms get lazy, instead keep them energized.

One, stretch, both legs, flex, reaching through the inner ankles articulating long through the spine. How do you feel? We're gonna let the legs continue down. Arms up to the ceiling here. Roll up to sit up.

Arms are stretching up, up, up. Bring the arms behind you. Stretch your triceps, reach. And now we're gonna come back down and around for coordination. So if you've this on the reformer, it's kind of similar.

We're in our position, curled. You might want to shorten your band, stretch and reach. Open squeeze, bend the knees, bend the elbows. So I'm opening and squeezing my arms, not my legs here, should have told you that. Reach open squeeze, knees and elbows.

Now two more. When you open, keep the armpits forward and curl. Last one, reach, open squeeze, bend the knees bend the elbows, lowering the head, weight down. And now from here, place the feet on the mat. Arms go up to the ceiling.

Big breath in, chin and the chest. We're rolling up for eight. Let's count it out loud. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And we're ready for rolling like a ball.

So the arms are gonna stay up in that very same position. I want you to channel your inner motorcycle rider here. So you're on your chopper. Your arms are up. Your knees are in toward your chest and your armpits are forward.

Here we go. We're inhaling back, exhaling up and balancing. Try to keep the arms reaching the whole time and resist the urge to pull from your neck. It gets really easy when your arms are overhead. Let's do three more.

Inhale, exhale up. Gait stays at the knees, whether you're back or up and let's just do one more here. Up and hold, extend the legs long. Knuckles come to the breastbone and we're gonna row. Take a big breath in here.

Exhale, scoop. So this is rowing from the chest. Arms press wide, palms are facing back. Scoop, curl, arms go behind. Butterfly the arms up and over, reach for your toes.

Roll up to stand tall. Even though the toes are pointed, we're reaching through the inner ankle bones. Hollow your belly. How hollow can you get without over squeezing your bum? Scoop, curl press, up and over, Butterfly, reach for the toes, stacking bone on bone to come up.

Two more, scoop, press, curl, up and over. Reaching for the sky. Butterfly up, around stretch, rolling up. Last one here. Exhale, scooping, round spine, pressing wide, curling up and over with a round spine, reach for the back wall.

Butterfly, the arms up and over. Roll up to sit tall. From here. Now I'm a little bit hinged back because that's the direction I'm going in, but I don't wanna be arching my back, that's later. From here will hinge back flat, now we're gonna reach up and forward.

Let the hands come to the floor, trace the floor, reach back. Butterfly, the arms up and around. Reach for the toes. Roll up, hinge, long heavy legs. Reach forward up, hinge, hinge, hinge, round scoop press butterfly up and around.

Reach for your toes. We have two more of these. Hinging back flat back, stretching up and over round. Like you've got mop on your palms, wipe it off. Butterfly up and around.

Roll up. Last one, hinging back flat, reaching up as you hinge, stretch, drag the hands, reach back, Butterfly up and around. Bring the knuckles to the breastbone. Now we're scooping, we're rolling back. Bring your elbows in tight, double leg stretch here.

My legs are in a hover, I can take them a little bit lower or I can keep them about here at my nose height. I'm gonna pull both legs in and stretch and four. So I'm losing tension but I still have to work to stay symmetrical. Like last week's workout. You know we're layering skills here.

Let's do one more. Now hold, single straight leg stretch. One leg goes up, the other leg, the opposite arm goes up and switch and switch and switch. And as you're switching, you're not forgetting to breathe. You're also making sure you use the whole leg not flexing the knee to make this happen.

Three, two, one. Both hands come up, hook the hands, squeeze the head and the arms for double straight leg lowers. We're lowering and lifting. Find me a tension at the upper inner thighs. They're hugging together.

And two more, exhaling up. Last one, exhaling up. Now for crisscross, you're gonna bend one knee in and twist and then twist. And as you're twisting, I want you to think of this. Am I turning the bottom of my breastbone or am I just turning my shoulders and my nose?

The work in the legs is both front of the leg and back of the leg. So don't just think I'm gripping from my quads 'cause I'm not. Two and one. Both arms up, scoop, rock up to sit up. Bring the arms behind you for a stretch and roll up.

So for our next trick, it's spine stretch forward, you know how to do it. But your arms are gonna be up and I'd like for the hands to face inward. Here, lots of posterior shoulder, sitting up over your sits bones. Now we're gonna o bow over. Let it go slack.

Now, start from your under butts, rolling up vertebra by vertebra to sit tall, three more. Always initiating from the nod, never initiating from the hands Two more. Rounding up and over, and reversing it. Starting at the pelvis rolling back up. Last one, up and over round spine.

And then rolling back up, hold. We're gonna bring the arms in, holding them in tight. We're gonna come back to a half scoop. And you may want to shorten your band just a little bit or a lot if your band's really long. From here, I'm not down low, I'm in between and I'm finding this balance position here.

Now this is gonna be a little interlude. We're gonna pull in. Sorry, we're gonna pull in parallel. Four, three, two, and one. Hold it here.

Now your band's gonna go outside of your knees and we're going to clam. Big toes stay together. Two more and one more. And then we're gonna open, keep the band where it is, half moon. So from the hip joint, not from the knees, I'm lowering my feet down to tap and up.

And one more, tap and up. My arms are gonna open and I'm gonna do a single leg half-moon here, three. Now the leg that's up is super important because it's got to stay activated to make that happen. Let's come back in, roll up, take a stretch at the top and then we're gonna do it again, scooping back. Knees are gonna pull in.

Four and three and two and one. Band, open and close. Three and two and one. Half moon pushing into the band from your outer cheeks, three, two, and one. Arms come out, alternating, four.

Toes tap, three and two and one. Let's bring it together and up. Same idea, take a stretch here. This time we'll put our hands back, the next stretch One more time for this interlude. We're scooping back.

Holding it back. Legs come up and the legs come in. Four and three and two and one. Arms come out and clam, and three and two and one. Half moon down and up three.

How hollow is your core? We don't want any fluffer nutter here. And last one, alternating four and three and good. Two more, we're almost there. And last one.

And from here, just rock up to sit up. keeping the soles of the feet together, we're gonna stretch forward here, because what's next is a little brutal. So open leg rocker with the band means that you've got to really have a good connection from your core down through your feet and up through your shoulder girdle. So arms are up. I'm gonna find my balance point and then I'm gonna bring my legs up and out.

I roll back. I roll up, get tall at the top. Then I'm gonna bring my toes together, tap and lift. Again, scoop your belly back, roll up, get taller, taller, taller at the top. Come in, scoop the belly, tap and up.

Three more, back, hold your balance. Backs of the shoulders should be really alive. Two more, up. Tap the toes. Last one, back.

Find the height, find the height, lift your breastbone. Tap up, legs come together and lower down and release forward. It's been earned, so take the stretch where you can. Very nice. We are gonna take this band.

You may not throw it at the screen, just place it off to the side for now. And we're gonna grab our resistance loop. We're gonna come around the soles of the feet. And then you're gonna lay down on your stomach. Now you have a choice here.

You can either be completely flat down with your face to the floor, or you can be in the same position that we started class with. And that was the diamond position of the upper back, I'm sorry, of the arms and hands. The upper back is gonna be in a slight extension. You should feel nothing here in your low back at all. Legs are long, cheeks are energized, stretching through the inner ankle bone.

So from the inner thigh through the inner ankle. And we're just gonna do a modified single leg kick here. So it's small, stretch. Now here's the thought, I don't want any sassy single leg kicks here. There's no sachet, there's no mambo.

Pelvis stays level and neutral. I'm kicking and I'm stretching, and I'm feeling my hamstrings a little bit more than I'm do my quad because the range of motion here, but that's okay. Now from here, keep the width, keep the energy through the outer leg as much as through the inner. We're gonna curl both legs, flexing the ankles. Depending upon your knee flex, your legs can be anywhere in between.

See if you can find your inner ankle bone and then we're gonna lift, and lower. So the lift is not coming from my left eyebrow, though it is a pernicious eyebrow sometimes, I'm trying not to bring it to the party. Instead, I'm lifting from my under butt, and I'm really working my inner thigh so my knee doesn't kick out to the side. Lift and lower, last one and lower. Then I'm gonna take both legs down and curl.

Both legs curling at the same time here, keeping pressure once again into the band. So I'm working more outer hip, outer leg. And no matter what, even though my feet want to come closer together at the top, I'm gonna work against that. Three more here and two more slow curl, and last one, good. I wanna do one more action here but I feel like a stretch has been earned.

So we're just gonna come back here. Give your tail a little wag. Now you can be sassy. Now you may sashay those cheeks, but before not so good. Coming back up and we're gonna go back down into that exact same position we were just in and turn the legs out into a frog shape.

So my knees are open. I'm angling my toes to point up. So not there, here. From here, we're just going to start with two legs, pushing out and let the toes settle inward, but don't relax. I'm using my outer rear once again, but I'm not squeezing my glutes so hard that this ends up affecting my low back, never that.

Three and two. Check in on your arm pits, one. Now, same idea, alternating legs. I'm gonna start with my one leg. And as I'm stretching, I'm thinking of stretching through my groin and my outer rear.

Not just pushing my foot away and hoping this ends quickly, though there may be a little bit of that happening too. I'm just being honest. And three more, and two more and last one, good. Stretching the legs back, arms are gonna reach forward. And then from here, lift that up into a slight extension, heavy palms, rotating your armpits forward.

Feel your pinkies and your thumbs heavily resting into the mat. Swimming legs, up and down, and up and up. Swimming is always brutal. But with the band, it's a little bit more so. Three, two, one.

Lower it down here. Curl your toes under child's pose again. And in this position, let's cross one wrist over the other and just hold. Two big breaths, and then switch across. In this position here, think of bringing the hands, I mean the upper arms as close to the head as possible and letting the chest relax.

All right, now we're moving on. Keeping the same band, we're going to slide it up toward our thighs but not quite. So maybe around the meaty part of the calf, or if you're more comfortable, it can be just above the knee, but somewhere in this area. We're gonna come onto the forearm here. Knees are bent, heels are just about in line with the sitz bones, and we're lifting the bottom waist up to meet the top waist.

Top hand can either be on your hip, you can be taken with the vapors or you can give your head a little bit of a support here. Now choose your option wisely. I'm gonna have vapors today. My bottom, both of my heels are turned upward slightly. Top leg is resting on the bottom leg and then we'll go into the clam.

Or if your pants are slippery, you're gonna select your band up. Here we go. So I'm opening and I'm closing, and I'm really thinking of this happening in my hip joint, not that my hip joint is doing it. So I'm rotating. I'll take four more just like this and three and two, and now one.

Now this time my knee stays up. You may even put your hand here just as a reminder if you need to, I call this the clambake, that's because it's brutal for me to turn my knee in and then back out. Find that rotation in each one. I'm turning out, I'm turning in, my knee is staying at the same height. Four more, three more, two and one more.

And now my top leg stretches. If you've had it with this body position, you may come all the way down. If not, you can keep it up or you can change to the propped head position, just make sure your ribs are up, not sinking here and collapsing into the shoulder. So the leg is going to lift. It's gonna rotate in, it's gonna rotate out, lowers down in neutral.

Lift, turn in, turn out and down. Three more. Up, turn, turn past neutral to external rotation. Two more, a lift. Turn it in, turn it out, back down.

And here's your last one. Bring it up, turn it in, turn it out, bring it down. And now let's just take a quick stretch. You can slip the top foot out, it's okay. Crossing the foot over.

For some people this is enough. For others, they prefer to bring the leg across the body. Whichever works for your body, works for me. Whatever you do, make sure you're keeping this hip pressing down toward the other so you get a good stretch to the outer hip and the back line here. And good, second side.

Bring your band to wherever you had it on the last side. And come on to your clamp position, heels once again in line, somewhere there about with your back with your sitz bones. Hand comes to wherever you had it last time, ribs are lifted up. Bottom heel is lifted and it's clam time. We're going up and down, two.

Find it happening, once again in the joint. Not rolling here, but rotating in the joint. Three more, two, sorry. I slipped out of that for a second, and lift the knee up. Clambake, keep the knee right here.

Turn it in and out and two, and three. Keep breathing, four. I'll take four more, three and two. Take your top leg long. Change your upper body position if you choose.

This is the internal and external rotation, leg is long, waist is up. We're lifting up, turning in, turning out, lower down. Again, four more. Who's still breathing? It's important you know.

Three, in, out and just two more. Up, in, out and lower. And last one, lift, in out. Bring it down and slip your top leg up. Take your hip stretch.

Crossed over is fine, laid over is fine too. Whichever works for you. Hold it for about, well, we're done holding it. Now let's get up and now it's teaser time. But before we go into the teaser, I'd like to just take a quick little hip release here.

We're gonna come on to one knee, it's gonna be behind you. The other leg is gonna be in front of you and you can either have your arms up here, hands up here on your knee, back toes are curled under, or you can be down here, wherever you feel the stretch a little bit better. But I think it's best that before we go into the teaser we give the quadriceps a moments peace. From here, we're gonna sit back onto the heel, flexing the front leg, stretching through the toes. You can give yourself a little bit of a stretch to the foot too, if you'd like, and we're gonna do the same thing on the other side.

So coming in to your position. I like to lift my chest because I get a better stretch through my quad. And this is my tighter side so I give it a moment. And then I sit back, stretching through the heel, through the inner ankle bone, reaching long through my upper body, stretching into the arch of my foot. Enough stalling, right?

It's teaser time. So for your teaser, you're gonna grab your band, your long loose band. We're gonna wrap it the same way we did last time. So the band is gonna come around the tops of the feet, through an in-between and make sure your tails are pretty even. Sliding the looped part of the band down more toward the heel pocket once again, so that way you get feedback through that line of the inner ankle bone.

And you know, when you're supernating or when you are standing neutral. From here, slide the hands into the loops if you've got them. If not, pinch and hold on tight. We're gonna be back down on our backs here. And this is of an interlude.

So we're gonna take this in several phrases. I'm gonna start by shortening my band and bringing my legs up hip width. First one, just your basic rolling up into your teaser. Node the chin to the chest, stretching the legs as you curl up. We're taking our time cause we have the band so we can really work on symmetry.

I'm just resting my chin on my hands, holding the position and I'm rolling back down. Can we do another one of those? Let's go. Chin to the chest, curl, stretch, lift, not a lot of work in the arms, knuckles and thumbs to the breastbone and scooping and rolling down. Adding on.

From here you can either stay in this chair position or you can bring the legs down to more of a teaser three type of maneuver. You may wanna loosen your bands here. Take a big breath in, nod the chin to the chest. Once you see your toes, you lift up. Now here, find the height of your chest and we'll just pinwheel the arms out and up.

Now you have to stand into your seat here. If you don't stand in your seat, your arms are gonna pull you right off your balance point, scooping and lowering back down. Can we do that again? Chin to the chest. Find your middle back, allow your middle back to assist your core as you come up wide arms.

Make sure you see your thumbs in your periphery. And one more here. Standing in your cheeks, coming up, hold, rolling down. Now it's time to get fancy. Here we go.

Big breath in, nod the chin near chest. As you're curling up, your arms are gonna come up as well, hold. Now we're adding rotation. Hands are gonna come into your chest. You're gonna rotate back and up, back.

And remember rotation starts from the waist so I don't want you thinking shoulders are gonna cut it. Nah, am rolling back. Again, chin to the chest. Exhale, scooping, curling. Arms are coming up, hold.

Same idea, hands come into the chest. Rotate and up, rotate, standing into your legs so they can be apart a little bit here and last one. Up and lower down. Bring the arms down by your sides, curl up to your elbows and pull your arms back. Knees are gonna come in, shorten your band, legs come up, hold.

So here for hip circles, the legs are gonna go over to the right. Start with windshield wiper. I'm sorry. So we're gonna go right and left, and right. And now from here, we're gonna go into the full circle, legs come around, bring it up.

And then the other way, same idea. Up and around, down and up and last one down up and hold. Float your legs down. Roll over to one side. Stack your feet, loosen your top handle.

The arms gonna be into your side and we're gonna go into a side plank here. Lift your hips up, standing into both legs. Hold the position. Top arm reaches overhead five, and four, three, two and one. Single hip lower, come back up and lower down.

Back onto your sides. Shorten your band, I mean on your center, legs, go up. Windshield wiper, four. As you're doing this, how high is your breastbone and how open is your chest? Hip circles, down around and up and reverse, As you're breathing, make sure you're taking a full breath not a goldfish breath.

You are not a goldfish. Now come down. I'm gonna switch sides so you can see me. Standing on your feet, here we go. Up into our side plank.

This bottom arm is really important. Find your armpit, but the back of your armpit and lift up. Feet are stacked, hips are stacked, and we're reaching overhead. Five and four and three, armpit stays forward on both arms, and one, hip lower, hip lift. Good, come on down.

Now we're gonna flip over on our bellies. Open your legs wide, your arms are in goalpost position. So if you don't watch football, it's an L, and then the other side is the mirrored L. From this position lifting one arm and the opposite leg up, and then back down. And as you're lifting, the arm is staying parallel to the floor, the knee is staying straight and you're lifting from the back body.

Four more, lift. Three more up, two more, reach. Last one, reach and lower it back down. Give it a little bit of a wiggle here and then square it up. One more time.

Here we go. Opposite arm to leg, there's no tension in your neck, chest or shoulders here but your back is broad. You're breathing deep into the lower lobes of your lungs, and you're really, really thinking about keeping the torso quiet as the arms and legs lift. Good, relax it down. Let's push it back, hold the stretch.

Now, it's time to get rid of the band. Don't be sad. I know you loved it so, but it's time to let it go. Get rid of it completely. We're gonna go to cross legs here.

Wherever is comfortable, but try to pick your less than favorite leg to cross in front first. And we are going to stretch away from that less than favorite leg. So the leg that's crossed behind, we're stretching away from it. So I'm coming onto my forearm, I'm reaching my top arm away. And ideally, I'm keeping this hip heavy, stretching over.

Now, I'm gonna bring my hand between my shoulder blades and stretch here. I'm breathing into my long side. Then from here, I'm going to rotate, bring my top arm around and I'm reaching toward the corner, the diagonal. Even here, thinking about where my armpits are rotating. Let's go to the second side.

Switch across in this position, find that both sitz bones are heavy to the mat. Free arm's gonna come down, other arm comes up and over, side bending. And listen, if the elbow doesn't come into the floor, that's fine. Go to wherever you need to go while keeping your sitz bones heavy, both sitz bones, not just the one you're stretching toward. Hold the stretch.

Breathe as if this is the only lung you have. I want you to inflate it in a whole big circle as opposed to just in the front. Now bring the hand back between the shoulder blades. One side's always a little stretchier than the other. And from here, reach for the diagonal.

Arms are reaching long, head is stretching down, back hip stays heavy, don't forget. And now rotate from your waist, not just your shoulders. Breathe into the back rib on this stretch. And come up. Crabby shoulders, that's what I call this.

We did a lot of work in the backs of the shoulders today, more than you'll think, so let's just give it a little bit of peace here. Walk your hands back to wherever they go. Fingertips are rotated forward. Chest is broad and then you're just gonna bend the elbows like you're doing a pushup. Go to wherever you can go without letting the shoulders dump forward.

Think of the elbows drawing toward each other. We're just gonna hold this for about 10 seconds. Fingertips are down and heavy, all 10 fingertips, please. There will be no fingertip discrimination on my watch. I'm just saying and justice for all.

Now we're gonna turn our fingertips to East to West. Same idea, drop your breastbone a little bit but keep your chest broad, crappy shoulders here. Breathing up into your chest and you'll get even more stretch through your pecs and through your anterior shoulder, which is super important. Last one, fingertips will point away and then bending the elbows. Now they don't like it.

I'm bending as much as I can which is not as much for me here. And I'm really, really really emphasizing what's happening in my hands. For those of you that work on computers all day, this is a really good one to release your forearms and your palms as well, especially on that mousing hand, you might notice a little less comfort there, and come up. Folks, we did it yet again. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

I personally had a great time. I hope you did as well. If you get a chance, don't forget, Pilates Anytime is doing this every single day of the week, Monday through Friday, 11:00 a.m.. So I hope to see you again next Monday for the last Fortify the Mat with Misty Lynn. I'll see you then, thank you.